Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Americans may never again buy clothes labeled "made in China" if robot sewing machines can beat Chinese costs of labor. The Pentagon has given $1.2 million to a Georgia Tech spinoff company to turn that futuristic concept into reality.

Such computer-controlled sewing machines must precisely move fabric under the needle "stitch by stitch" and carefully track passing threads — a job normally done with human hands and eyesight. Success could lead to automated U.S. factories that "produce garments with zero direct labor," according to the contract issued by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on June 5.

The idea of making garment cutting and sewing a profitable U.S. business came from Steve Dickerson, founder and chief technology officer of Softwear Automation (the Georgia Tech spinoff company that received DARPA's recent $1.2 million funding).

Dickerson realized the possibility for robotic sewing machines after observing that sewn items had disappeared almost entirely from his hometown of Commerce, Ga., and most of the United States. The U.S. currently imports about $100 billion worth of clothes and sewn items each year — much of it from countries such as China or Vietnam.

"The [robotic] technology proposed appears to allow cutting and sewing at costs LESS THAN in China," according to Softwear Automation's website. "There is only one basic innovation required; that the metric of motion should not be meters or inches but rather thread count in the fill and warp directions."

Success could spell out huge disruptions for workers as robots continue taking over human jobs in manufacturing and other industries. Low-paid workers in developing countries stand to lose out the most in this case, but U.S. workers won't gain much, either. Still, U.S. businesses could once again regain a foothold in the garment industry and win back a share of international trade.

Yes, U.S. businesses could regain a foothold in the garment industry. With no actual workers whatsoever. It will be glorious. For a few rich people, anyway.

Something tells me the cost of clothing won't come down, though. And the CEOs of these companies will whine and cry at the notion that anyone should suggest redistributing their income.

I'm not a Luddite. I understand that these sorts of mechanization changes are inevitable. In fact, I think they're a good thing. But far too many people have their heads in the sand about the modern wave of job mechanization, assuming that new jobs will be created elsewhere to replace them as productivity rises. They won't be.

Most American seamsters and seamstresses have already been displaced by overseas labor, so the impact of something like this domestically isn't huge (though some companies like American Apparel still do sew and create jobs with domestic labor.) But even the sweatshops themselves have been a pathway out of utter destitute poverty for many people in developing nations. Those people will soon be out of work. I know that most Americans couldn't care less about workers in China or Bangladesh, and would much rather see some American executive make an extra $50 million than help anyone in another country. But they shouldn't.

We really are moving to a world in the next few decades where, at both a global and domestic level, there simply won't be remotely enough jobs available for the people who need them. What then?